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City Picks Philadelphia Firm to Reopen Tavern on the Green

By Julia Moskin August 16, 2012 4:56 pmAugust 16, 2012 4:56 pm

Robert Caplin for The New York TimesTavern on the Green is under construction in Central Park.

Aug. 17, 1:34 p.m. | Updated

More than two years after the legendary Central Park restaurant Tavern on the Green closed and its once-luxurious appointments were auctioned off, the parks department has selected a new, Philadelphia-based operator that plans to reopen the space as a smaller, more rustic restaurant in the fall of 2013.

“The hope is that it will not be only a destination, but a place that will serve the neighborhood and locals who use the park every day,” said Katy Sparks, the new executive chef, who has worked in New York City since the 1980s.

Although the footprint of the restaurant will be smaller than the final incarnation of the old Tavern on the Green, there will, nonetheless, be room for 300 guests inside, an additional 200 to 300 outside and a takeout window selling smoothies, sandwiches and picnic fare.

The new operator, the Emerald Green Group, runs the Philadelphia restaurant Beau Monde, a popular bistro with 70 seats. Its principals, Jim Caiola and David Salama, are both chefs. Since her last restaurant closed in 2002, Ms. Sparks, who is known for her clean, New American culinary style, has been working as a consultant, developing local and sustainable menus for restaurants and companies like Sodexo.

About a half-dozen companies bid for the chance to develop a restaurant, including Legends Hospitality Management, which runs the Legends Suite Club and all food catering at Yankee Stadium; City Winery, a restaurant in downtown Manhattan for lovers of wine and music; and Park Street Ventures, an investment partnership in Essex Fells, N.J.

But New York’s high-powered restaurateurs did not submit proposals, a reflection of the building’s condition, the challenges of working with the city government, early disputes over the ownership of the lease and the restaurant’s name, and parks department limitations on catered events.

“I think the city really wanted to redefine what the Tavern is going to be,” said Drew Nieporent, who was the director of Tavern on the Green from 1978 to 1982, when it was a prime destination for parties and celebrities. “They don’t want private events. They don’t want music. They want something that will blend in, not stand out.”

A parks department spokesman, Philip Abramson, confirmed that the city’s goal for the site was to provide an informal, accessible restaurant that would harmonize with its bucolic setting. To that end, Ms. Sparks said, her menu will draw extensively on local farms and products: squid from Montauk, foie gras from the Hudson Valley and chocolate made by the Mast Brothers of Brooklyn.

The city, not the Emerald Green Group, is paying the nearly $10 million bill for the structural and exterior work that will restore the building to its original design. It was built by Calvert Vaux and Jacob Wrey Mould in the 19th century as a sheepfold for the 200 sheep that grazed in the Sheep Meadow nearby. As parks commissioner in the 1930s, Robert Moses converted the building into a (low-earning) restaurant, and in the 1970s, the impresario Warner LeRoy transformed it into a glittering, rococo showpiece. But business faltered in the economic downturn of the past several years; the Crystal Room, which was built over the original building’s courtyard, was dismantled in 2010.

The group has a signed letter of agreement with the restaurant workers’ union, the New York Hotel and Motel Trades Council, the first step toward a contract. Negotiations with the union, among other factors, derailed the first operator awarded the contract for the Tavern: Dean J. Poll, who runs the Boathouse restaurant nearby.

Stephen Starr, who operates large restaurants in Philadelphia, New York and Florida, said he was surprised by the city’s choice of the operator of a small bistro. “It’s a daunting task, to go from 70 to 600 seats, but you never know,” he said. “Rocky beat Apollo Creed in the end.”